There are many clinical conditions where it is important to be able to access and retrieve bone marrow. In some cases it may be necessary to treat diseases with a bone marrow or stem cell transplant to restore functioning blood cells in the body after high-dose chemotherapy. Such conditions may include acute leukemias, brain tumors, breast cancer, Hodgkin's disease, multiple myeloma, neuroblastoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, ovarian cancer, sarcoma and testicular cancer. In other cases it is necessary to access the bone marrow to obtain a sample of the marrow for diagnostic testing. These conditions may include cancer of any type and hematologic disease of any origin.
Gaining access to bone and associated bone marrow for a small biopsy specimen or aspiration of a larger quantity of bone marrow may be difficult, traumatic and occasionally dangerous, depending on the selected target area for harvesting bone and/or associated bone marrow, operator expertise and patient anatomy. Many currently available devices and techniques for gaining access to a bone and associated bone marrow may include using an intraosseous (IO) needle with a removable trocar disposed therein. Handles may be used to apply pressure to and manually rotate the IO needle and trocar as a set. Such manual IO devices often require substantial force to break through the outer cortex of a bone. Exertion of such force may cause pain to a patient and may sometimes damage the bone and/or IO device.
Excessive force when harvesting bone and/or bone marrow from the sternum of a patient may cause penetration through the sternum and potentially damage the underlying heart and/or great blood vessels. Damage may also occur when harvesting bone marrow from children with softer bone structures or any patient with bones deteriorated by disease (cancer).
Retrieving bone and bone marrow samples for diagnostic purposes may often be difficult. Occasionally a core sample of bone and/or bone marrow may not be successfully retrieved using a standard biopsy needle. Thus, multiple insertions at different sites may be necessary to obtain a satisfactory bone and/or bone marrow biopsy specimen. Risks to health care personnel may be higher because of increased handling of blood contaminated sharp instruments. Accidental needle sticks and missed target areas may further complicate procedures and increase risks to health care personnel and/or patients.
Conventional bone marrow transplant techniques may require multiple penetration sites (up to 20 per patient) in order to obtain enough bone marrow (sample size) to perform a routine bone marrow transplant. This is often a labor intensive procedure. Conventional biopsy needles are typically inserted with considerable manual force. This force may cause loss of control or operator fatigue. When the biopsy needle is in place, an associated trocar is generally removed and a syringe attached to the biopsy needle to aspirate a few cubic centimeters of bone marrow. The biopsy needle is then withdrawn. A new site is penetrated by the biopsy needle generally about a centimeter from the first site and the procedure repeated.